


Quick, Quick, Slow

by sage_theory (papersage)



Category: Battlestar Galatica
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-02
Updated: 2010-03-02
Packaged: 2017-10-07 16:09:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papersage/pseuds/sage_theory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helena does not at all seem capable of such careful movements</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quick, Quick, Slow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [carla_scribbles](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=carla_scribbles).



The reek of badly distilled liquor still hangs on Helena's breath. When she gets close enough, Laura Roslin can even smell it on her clothes, in her hair. She also smells smoke and wonders if it's mechanical or if there are any cigars still left in the fleet.

Helena stalks into her office like a sleepy lioness. Laura wonders what she's left behind on her ship that she looks so half sated.

Calmly, Laura removes her glasses. Lays them down slowly, precisely. She measures the speed of her motions like a Tauron spirit dancer. She remembers the first time she ever saw a Tauron Spirit Dance with its hyper-choreographed, subtle movements. She was fascinated by the intelligence, the way that a dancer could pay such careful attention to the way that every single part of their body moved. Most of the other students around her were bored, and though the dancers looked like statues that occasionally flicked a wrist or turned a head.

Laura, however, understood. The smallest gesture could turn an entire dance on its head.

It made the ending, the last burst motion a revelation, an explosion that trapped a gasp in her throat.

Helena does not at all seem capable of such careful movements. Which makes her both easier and more difficult to deal with.

"I rescheduled the meeting," she says, and gives Helena a cursory smile.

Helena crosses her arms, sighs like a bored predator. "I didn't come here for the meeting."

Laura isn't sure how surprised she is that Helena came out swinging. "Is there something else I can help you with?"

Helena sits on the edge of the desk. "You're the president and you sound like a frakking admin."

"I'm public servant, Helena," she replies, and carefully moves her hand towards Helena's thigh, but not in a way that warrants notice.

Helena laughs at this. "You're not serving me very well."

Slowly, Laura turns her body so that she's facing just a few degrees away from Helena. It brings her finger tips that much closer.

"I know that you and your crew didn't get the opportunity to choose the government we have now, but I assure you, when elections -"

"I'm not here to talk about elections."

"Of course. "She ever so slightly tilts her head. "If there's something on your mind, Admiral."

She leans in and braces on the desk, her hand right next to Laura's. But a twitch of a thumb, and they will touch.

"You and Adama."

"Yes?"

"You're frakking him. I can tell."

Laura very much wants to smile, but knows that a smile is out of place. This is a moment for caution, this is a moment for shadow, not lightheartedness.

"Admiral Adama and I have a strictly collegial relationship," she says, her voice going down just a little lower, charging the air with heat between them.

Helena cocks her head very combatively, obviously angered. "Oh, frak me, Laura. I know that you've been giving Bill the business. I can smell him on you."

She doubts that anyone's sense of smell is quite that keen.

"Then I'd advise you see Dr. McConnell, because there's nothing on me to smell."

Laura makes the very bold move of getting out of her chair, slowly. Her arms taking the weight so that she's standing without raising up. It doesn't quite raise hackles yet, but it puts her in precisely the position she wants.

"I don't want my people getting screwed. You shouldn't be in this office. You're the frakking secretary of education."

"I realize my credentials may leave something to be desired, but I assure you, I would not have taken the oath if I felt I was less that competent."

"Wouldn't you?" Helena challenges, putting her hand over Laura's, pressing down. A clear, forward gestured. She's a little off balance. "Would you really turn down all that power?"

Now Laura smiles. She smiles because she can still feel the bulge of her throat, the sting of tears when she raised her hand and shivered out a promise she knew she'd keep 'til it ground her down and made dust of her. And it will.

Helena jumps forward just a little, trying to get a rise from Laura. But she has put her hand in a pit of serpents and continued to give a speech, she's heaved herself dry and then put on a sparkling smile and toured a makeshift school. Thus, she has lost the ability to get spooked, to jump. Most have fight or flight. Laura just has fight.

When Helena pulls back, grinning as though she's won even though Laura held like a brick wall, Laura knows precisely what to do. All the threads have woven together to make this tapestry.

She uses her free arm and grabs Helena behind the neck, pulls her down and manages to spin her on the axis of her hip, until she's off balance, laying across the desk with one wrist in Laura's grip and one of Laura's hands on her throat.

Helena pants in surprise, eyes wide.

If she'd been watching, she would have seen it coming.

Laura hovers over her for a moment, then swoops down for a harsh kiss. She tastes the cloying remnants of liquor there, on tongue and teeth and lips. She keeps her motions slow as she hitches her skirt up and mounts Helena there on the desk.

Helena grabs her by the hips and a hand snakes towards her panties. Foreplay is out, then.

"Power is a dance, and a dancer who doesn't learn the steps stands to suffer, to make others suffer."

"And you think you can do a frakking merry jig?"

"Much better than you," she says, with a fond smirk, and dips down again for a kiss while she pushes Helena's hand away. "Things will be much better for all of us if you learn to let me lead."

Helena's eyes avert for a moment and she lets her hand fall to the desk, a tiny motion that is every bit as careful as a Spirit Dancer - and causes the same gasp to blossom in Laura's throat. Helena can dance this dance, she can be ever so delicate when she is lead properly.

Laura might comment, but she remains silent, and watches Helena's eyes watching her as she does the careful dance of lips on lips and fingers pressing inside, parting the folds and fingering the pearl within with a subtle little twist that makes Helena's eyes go wide.


End file.
